THE ONE WHO MAKES HIM SMILE by Moon71

CHAPTER 4: YUKI IS MINE!!!!!

Summary: Ayaka and Eiri go to Bad Luck's concert. A showdown is in the offing…

Author's Notes: What can I say? Such wonderful reviews, yet again. I hope to reply to them, but if I don't, please don't think each one isn't cherished!

The notes I gave for the last chapter really belong more to this one, so I'll repeat them…

Once again I'm following the anime fairly closely. I have watched both the subtitled Japanese and the English (American) dub a number of times, and prefer some bits in one, some bits in the other. Which version I have used for dialogues reproduced here depended on which I thought sounded better on paper. But I did rather like the Rome Elliot Yuki's particular tones in the pre-concert scene with Ayaka – that mixture of bored and bewildered…

Getting Eiri to do what I wanted was almost laughably easy. I told him I wanted to purchase a change of clothes and some toiletries and he willingly lent me the money and drove me into town, agreeing to collect me in one hour. As soon as he was out of sight I hailed a taxi and asked him to take me to back to the NG building.

My heart was pounding in my ears as I burst into the recording studio; my eyes were still burning from all the tears I had shed. As soon as I saw Shuichi all that anger boiled to the surface and I struck out wildly, almost knocking him off his feet. I shouted at him that Eiri had told me everything, accusing him of lying to me and laughing at me behind my back, of only pretending to be my friend. I spat the words at Shuichi but I wanted Hiro to hear them too.

"Ayaka-chan, that's not true!" I heard Hiro protest.

"Be quiet!" I snapped at him, and he drew back as if I had slapped him too. I hoped my words hurt him. Somehow his betrayal cut deeper than Shuichi's. Shuichi might have love as an excuse, if love could possibly be involved in this, but it was more than that. I had trusted Hiro… I had… grown fond of him…

I turned my attention back to Shuichi. "Your relationship has no future," I said with bitter satisfaction, and meant it, or thought I did. Could such a relationship have a future, even if neither of them were in the public eye? I didn't know, I didn't care. I saw a flicker of pain in Shuichi's eyes when I said it and that was enough. "If you continue to see Eiri you will only hurt each other. And besides," I went on, pressing my advantage, "Eiri is my fiancée! So do not go near him ever again!"

Blindly I turned on my heel and escaped the consternation I had left behind me. It was only when I reached the lifts that misery threatened to overwhelm me once more and tears filled my eyes. It was all so unfair, so completely unfair. I suddenly felt ashamed of myself for hitting Shuichi – Shindou Shuichi, who smiled so brightly and sang so sweetly. And what would Nakano Hiro think of me now? A silly, jealous little provincial girl who was too naïve to see that her so-called fiancée preferred men? And to think only a few hours ago I had dreamed of moving to Tokyo and getting to know Eiri's friends!

It was then that a deep, gentle voice addressed me in a foreign language.

We made the journey back to the flat in a heavy silence. Eiri seemed lost in his own world and for once I had no desire to intrude upon it. He had picked up some takeaway food on the way back to collect me but I hardly tasted it. Eiri's manner remained the same as always, polite but impersonal. He didn't ask me how long I intended to stay or how I planned to get home. Perhaps he assumed I could arrange my own affairs. Perhaps things had already been arranged in my absence and he did not think I needed to be told. Perhaps he didn't care – he was just biding his time until I gave up and left, so that he could resume his normal life. With Shindou Shuichi… perhaps.

"Would you like some coffee?" Eiri asked, lighting a cigarette as he emerged from the kitchen. "Or perhaps you'd prefer tea?"

"Are you in love with Shindou-san?" I asked sharply, deliberately ignoring his question.

Eiri glanced toward me, then away again. He took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled deeply. "Does it matter?"

Of course it matters, you impossible man! I felt like screaming at him. "You invited him to live with you," I said pointedly.

"I didn't invite him. He invited himself."

What was that supposed to mean? "Then he doesn't mean anything to you?"

No answer, just the soft sound of Eiri drawing on his cigarette once more. I watched Eiri as he drifted over to the window. Why this reserve? Why now, after he had as good as admitted they were lovers? Either he cared for the young man or he didn't. Was it just possible that Shindou Shuichi had some hold on him, that Eiri really didn't care about him but couldn't get rid of him? Hope flared – but then quickly died as I remembered what Mika-san had said about her husband's powerful protective instincts where his brother-in-law was concerned. Even if Shuichi's band wasn't being promoted by NG, a man with Tohma's wealth and connections would surely have made short work of him.

"Did he know?" I pressed on, "about me?"

"… He knows now," was the vague response.

I felt the pressure of tears build behind my eyes once more. Here I was, alone with the man I loved, and I could not have felt more wretched, more unwanted, more alone – or more bewildered. I had come all this way to gain some sort of understanding of my fiancé's intentions – and desires – only to find myself faced with a greater enigma than I had ever imagined. Could it simply be a case of chronic apathy on Eiri's part? Did he just hang around waiting for things to happen to him – our engagement, Shuichi's cohabiting? It went against everything I knew of him - his present lifestyle, his jealously guarded privacy; his stubborn refusal to placate his family even in the smallest ways. Though it made my heart ache to admit it, even to myself, I could imagine him taking such a complacent attitude to a betrothal to a girl miles away who he hardly knew – but allowing a boy to live with him, just because he could not be bothered to drive him out… it simply did not follow.

"Why did you tell me about Shindou-san?" I asked in a whisper.

"…it had gotten to be a pain…" Eiri answered dully, as if from the depths of a dream.

"Do you mean me? Or Shindou-san?"

"…I don't know…" Eiri sighed. He sounded both bewildered and a little bored.

Perhaps it was both of us, I reflected dolefully. Perhaps, if I hadn't been so impulsive, he could have let things drag on as they were indefinitely. He could even have married me and left me in Kyoto with a kiss and a promise, while keeping Shuichi in Tokyo as some sort of… mistress, for want of a better word. But now that we knew about each other perhaps that all seemed too much like hard work.

I was wasting my time here, that was clear enough to me now. If Eiri did have real feelings for Shuichi, if he hadn't just taken up with him on a whim and Shuichi wasn't just a variation on the endless parade of women rumour suggested trooped their way through his bedroom, he was never going to admit it to me.

I needed to see Shuichi again. Earlier today I had been too filled with outrage, with a bitter sense of betrayal to even think of questioning him. Now I realised I had wasted a valuable opportunity. But there might be other opportunities… I was not on the way back to Kyoto yet…

Suddenly I recalled that bizarre conversation I had had on my way out of the NG building that morning, with that gigantic blonde American person who claimed to be Bad Luck's manager. He had wanted me to bring Eiri to the concert tonight. I couldn't believe the temerity of the man – hadn't he just witnessed my fight with his lead singer? But he insisted he didn't care about what he called our "little domestic" – he just wanted Shuichi to do his best on stage and if Eiri was there, the best is what Shuichi would give. While I was still absorbing his words, he pressed two tickets into my hand and disappeared.

All at once I knew what I wanted. What I needed. To see Eiri and Shuichi together. It was possible that Shuichi's natural, open-hearted manner was all a front, but I decided that I did not believe that. Nor, now I considered it, did I think he had known about my connection to Eiri until that morning, or ever intended to hurt me. All the same, I really didn't know anything about him. Perhaps he had many boyfriends and Eiri meant nothing; perhaps he just liked the use of Eiri's flat and Eiri's Mercedes and Eiri's credit cards – and Eiri's connections, I noted, thinking of Seguchi Tohma – and he was only afraid of losing all of that. If all that was true I would take great pleasure in sending him packing.

If.

One way or other, I needed to see what I was up against. I needed to see for myself, before Mika-san or Uesugi-san or anyone else could rearrange the facts to keep me contented.

"I'm not giving up," I said boldly, "not if you truly intend to break it off with him. Please… come with me."

Eiri turned slowly. "Come where…?"

I dared to look him straight in the eye. "To Bad Luck's concert," I told him.

I had never been to a pop concert before. Even before we entered the dimly lit hall my heart was already fluttering with panic – all around me there seemed to be rough looking men smoking and drinking and swearing, though they were almost drowned out by the outlandishly dressed women with their dyed hair and high heels and thickly applied make-up who could did not so much speak as screech every word at the top of their lungs. Almost unconsciously I shifted closer to Eiri until I was virtually hiding behind him.

When we entered the lobby he led me over to the bar, bought me a soft drink and lit up a cigarette. The sugary drink and the shelter I found in his shadow helped to calm my nerves and I began to look about me with more interest. The crowd seemed less intimidating – the figures around me resolved themselves into ordinary boys and girls no older than I was, just presented a little differently. I got used to the cacophony of voices, even started to follow one or two conversations, most of which, I noted with increasing amusement, involved a debate as to who was "hotter", Shuichi or Hiro, and whether either of them had a girlfriend, and how one girl had worn her shortest skirt and another borrowed her sister's stilettos for the night and how, if they managed to get to the front of the stalls, "Shindou-san" might just notice them.

"Damned groupies," I heard Eiri mutter as he crushed out his cigarette, and I was reminded with a painful jolt of just why we had come here tonight. I watched him closely, but his face remained expressionless as he put his hand very lightly on my arm and steered me into the hall.

My pulse was racing as the audience began to clap their hands in a slow rhythm, beckoning out the band. Why? I am still not entirely sure. It could have been a premonition of some kind; it could have been in anticipation of some sort of reckoning, though there was every chance that this would be a wasted effort and Eiri would betray nothing of the secrets of his heart. It could even have been something entirely different – the shared experience, the excitement of the crowd, even, in spite of all that had happened to me that day, the wish for Bad Luck to bring the house down.

Moments later a deafening cheer rocked the hall as Shuichi and Hiro entered onto the stage, followed by the little keyboardist I had barely noticed that morning in the studio. If I hadn't seen the huge posters outside the venue I would have had quite a shock – the last time I had seen Seguchi Tohma's cousin Fujisaki Suguru he had been playing with some of my own small cousins at Mika-san's wedding.

Then Shuichi turned to face the crowd. And as if drawn by some inexplicable magnetism, the first person his gaze settled upon was Eiri, standing right at the back. Or, more precisely, Eiri – and me. I didn't have to look at my fiancé's face to know he was staring back, though I could not for the world have said what was going on in his mind.

Suddenly music filled the hall, explosively loud and electronic but overflowing with energy. And Shuichi began to sing.

I wish now I had been able to concentrate more on the singing at that moment, the first time I had really heard him – and Hiro – perform. But I felt too hot and dizzy, too confused by everything I was feeling. Beside me, Eiri had lowered his eyes, his head slightly bent, his features utterly still. Not bored, no… he was shutting out the world so he could listen in peace. I understood the feeling only too well. It was as if there were only three of us in that huge venue – Eiri, Shuichi – and me.

And then it happened. In a single moment, it happened, the culmination of all that had happened to the three of us that day, sealing our fates, it seemed, forever. Shuichi's response to the challenge I had hardly wanted to acknowledge I was throwing down.

"Yuki is all MINE!"

If Eiri could hear me say this, he would no doubt have sneered at the cliché. But I would still swear it was true – time really did seem to stand still in that room, for at least a minute. Hiro and Fujisaki stopped playing. The crowd stopped dancing and clapping and cheering. There was absolute silence.

Stunned laughter rippled through the crowd. There were several suggestive whistles and a few of those wild girls, remarkably generous in their declared love for Shuichi, began to shout words of encouragement. As curious whispers floated back to us (Wow! Who's Yuki? Do you think she's here tonight? Whoever she is, she's a lucky little bitch! Hah! Cut out the "lucky" and you've got it right!) I would swear on my life that I saw Eiri's ivory skin turn just a little pink. I stared helplessly at him.

All at once the music resumed – and I am sure I did not imagine the exuberance with which the band now played. I saw Hiro laugh joyfully as he tossed back the thick red hair from his shoulders and even Fujisaki, who had been sombre even as a child, was smiling happily. Shuichi was now springing about the stage like a rabbit, spinning in circles and wriggling his hips while his friends took turns to play solo.

"So I belong to him…"

" – Huh - ?"Alarmed, I stared up at Eiri. Not that he was speaking to me; he was hardly aware of me at all. For one foolish second I was genuinely afraid he was angry – with Shuichi, maybe with me too. But there was no anger in his expression. His face was more relaxed than I had ever seen it. And as I watched, he lowered his eyes and produced what was… quite unmistakably… a smile. "He's of the worst kind…" he murmured, "that damn brat…"

"Eiri-san…?" The words were insulting, but the tone was… affectionate. Almost… coy.

We must have been the only two members of the audience who did not applaud when the song was finished.

TBC